Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8) / Aboriginal America

by Unknown

At nearly the same date at which Dr. Abbott published the account of his discoveries, Col. Charles C. Jones, of Augusta, Georgia, recorded the finding of “some rudely-chipped, triangular-shaped implements in Nacoochee valley under circumstances which seemingly assign to them very remote antiquity. In material, manner of construction, and in general appearance, so nearly do they resemble some of the rough, so-called flint hatchets belonging to the drift type, as described by M. Boucher de Perthes, that they might very readily be mistaken the one for the other.”[1504] They were met with in the course of mining operations, in which a cutting had been made through the soil and the underlying sands, gravels, and boulders down to the bedrock. Resting upon this, at a depth of some nine feet from the surface, were the three implements described. But it is plain that this deposit can scarcely be regarded as a true glacial drift, since the great terminal moraine lies more than four hundred miles away to the north, and the region where it occurs does not fall within the drift area. It must be of local origin, and few geologists would be willing to admit the existence of local glaciers in the Alleghanies so far to the south during the glacial period. Consequently these objects do not fall within our definition of true palæolithic implements.

The same thing may be said in a less degree of the implements discovered by C. M. Wallace, in 1876, in the gravels and clays of the valley of the James River.[1505]

A different character attaches to certain objects discovered in 1877 by Professor N. H. Winchell, at Little Falls, Minnesota, in the valley of the Mississippi River.[1506] These consisted mainly of pieces of chipped white quartz, perfectly sharp, although occurring in a water-worn deposit, and they were found to extend over quite a large area. Their artificial character has been vouched for by Professor Putnam, and among them were a few rude implements which are well represented in an accompanying plate. A geological section given in the report shows that they occur in the terrace some sixty feet above the bank of the river, and were found to extend about four feet below the surface. In the words of Professor Winchell: “The interest that centres in these chips ... involves the question of the age of man and his work in the Mississippi Valley.... The chipping race ... preceded the spreading of the material of the plain, and must have been pre-glacial, since the plain was spread out by that flood stage of the Mississippi River that existed during the prevalence of the ice-period, or resulted from the dissolution of the glacial winter.... The wonderful abundance of these chips indicates an astonishing amount of work done, as if there had been a great manufactory in the neighborhood, or an enormous lapse of time for its performance.”

This discovery of Professor Winchell was followed up by researches prosecuted in 1879 in the vicinity of Little Falls by Miss F. E. Babbit, of that place.[1507] She discovered a similar stratum of chipped quartz in the ancient terrace, of a mile or more in width, about forty rods to the east of the river, and elevated some twenty-five feet above it. This had been brought to light by the wearing of a wagon track, leading down a natural drainage channel, which had cut through the quartz stratum down to a level below it. The result of her prolonged investigations showed that “the stratum of quartz chips lay at a level some twelve or fifteen feet lower than the plane of the terrace top.”[1508] While the quartz chips discovered by Professor Winchell were contained in the upper surface of the terrace plain, these were strictly confined to a lower level, and cannot be synchronous with them. They must be older “by at least the lapse of time required for the deposition of the twelve or fifteen feet of modified drift forming the upper part of the terrace plain above the quartz-bearing stratum.”

This conclusion is abundantly confirmed by Mr. Warren Upham, of the U. S. Geological Survey, in his study of “The recession of the ice-sheet in Minnesota in its relation to the gravel deposits overlying the quartz implements found by Miss Babbit at Little Falls, Minnesota.”[1509] The great ice-sheet of the latest glacial epoch at its maximum extension pushed out vast lobes of ice, one of which crossed western and central Minnesota and extended into Iowa. Different stages of its retreat are marked by eleven distinct marginal moraines, and this deposit of modified drift at Little Falls Mr. Upham believes occurred in the interval between the formation of the eighth and the ninth. “It is,” he says, “upon the till, or direct deposit of the ice, and forms a surface over which the ice never re-advanced.” An examination of the terraces and plains of the Mississippi Valley from St. Paul to twenty-five miles above Little Falls shows them to be similar in composition and origin to the terraces of modified drift in the river valleys of New England. In his judgment, “the rude implements and fragments of quartz discovered at Little Falls were overspread by the glacial flood-plain of the Mississippi River, while most of the northern half of Minnesota was still covered by the ice.... It may be that the chief cause leading men to occupy this locality so soon after it was uncovered from the ice was their discovery of the quartz veins in the slate there, ... affording suitable material for making sharp-edged stone implements of the best quality. Quartz veins are absent, or very rare and unsuitable for this, in all the rock outcrops of the south half of Minnesota, that had become uncovered from the ice, as well as of the whole Mississippi basin southward, and this was the first spot accessible whence quartz for implement-making could be obtained.”

According to this view the upper deposit at Little Falls would appear to be more recent than those laid down by the immediate wasting of the great terminal moraine at Trenton and in Ohio; but the occupation of the spot by man upon the lower terrace may well have been at a much earlier time.

Many of the objects discovered by Miss Babbitt have been placed in the Peabody Museum, and as their artificial character has been questioned, the writer wishes to repeat his opinion, formed upon the study of numerous specimens that have been submitted to him, but not the same as those upon which Professor Putnam based his similar conclusions, that they are undoubtedly of human origin.

Implements of palæolithic form have been discovered in several other localities, but as none of them have been found in place, in undisturbed gravel-beds, either those which have been derived from the terminal moraine of the second extension of the great northern ice-sheet, or those which are included within the drift area, they cannot be considered as proved to be true palæolithic implements, although it is highly probable that many of them are such.[1510]

We have now to consider the claim to high antiquity of objects which have been discovered in several places in certain deposits, equally regarded as of glacial origin, which occur in the central and western portions of the United States. These are the so-called “lacustrine deposits,” which are believed to have had their origin from the former presence of vast lakes, now either extinct or represented by comparatively small bodies of water. The largest of such lakes occupied a great depression which once existed between the Rocky Mountains and the chain of the Sierra Nevada during the quaternary period. The existing lakes represent the lowest part of two basins, into which this depression was divided; of these, the western one, represented by certain smaller lakes, has received the name of Lake Lahontan. This never had any communication with the sea, and its deposits consequently register the greater or less amount of rain and snow during the period of its existence. To the eastern the name of Lake Bonneville has been given, and it is at present represented by the Great Salt Lake in Utah. This formerly had an outlet through the valley of the Columbia River. These lakes are believed to have been produced by the melting of local glaciers existing during the quaternary times in the above-named mountains; and similar consequences seem to have followed from the like presence of ancient glaciers in the Wahsatch and Uintah mountains, where no lake now exists.

In the ancient deposits of such an immense fresh-water lake, derived from the melting of glaciers in the last-mentioned mountains, which once existed in southern Wyoming, Professor Joseph Leidy first reported, in 1872, the discovery near Fort Bridger of “mingled implements of the rudest construction, together with a few of the highest finish.... Some of the specimens are as sharp and fresh in appearance as if they had been but recently broken from the parent block. Others are worn and have their sharpness removed, and are so deeply altered in color as to look exceedingly ancient.”[1511] The plates accompanying the report show that some of these objects are of palæolithic form, but as no further information is given in regard to the conditions under which they were discovered, we cannot pronounce them to be really palæolithic.